DVD A Go Go
It was dark coming home from work tonight. I could see the interior of a minvan up ahead of me awash in the eerie blue glow of a TV screen. Some bastion of surburban America was undoubtedly transporting the leaders of tomorrow and decided to keep them occupied with the boob tube.
Do today's young families really need DVD players as part of their minivan option packages? I suppose they help on long trips but I'm fairly certain a sizeable fraction of the reading I've done in my life has taken place while riding in automobiles.
I remember the first car we got that had FM radio. Boy were we psyched. Music with no static. My grandparents were the first in our family to have a car with air conditioning. My brother and I found the relief of that car's cool air more than offset by the frequent farts coming out of their decrepit dachshund. Talk about mixed blessings.
I suppose kids today will feel deprived if they can't watch Sponge Bob on their way to Aunt Gertrude's but it's hard for me to sympathize.
I was probably 15 before the White family cars had seatbelts.
K-
This is one new technology I find myself unable to embrace. I'm not really sure why. Maybe because I haven't figured out why we need it. I guess as long as the screen isn't in the driver's line of vision, there shouldn't be any safety concerns. But, the safety factor still concerns me. As a kid, I always read on car trips, too. So did my girls. When they got tired of reading, we talked.
Sounds like us. Although my mother always called it bickering not talking.
K-
Our new Tahoe has one, but only because it came with the truck, not because we specifically wanted it. It will only be used on trips of more than one hour. I'm not going to have the thing going when we are on the way to school or shopping. I can't read in the car (I wish I could!) and neither can the urchins--we all get carsick if we try. Howard already plays GameBoy and Paloma has video now, so I figured this wasn't much of a stretch. It beats their fussing, and has earphones.